SHOOTING THE WHITE ELEPHANT

Well, I suppose no one would accuse Grand Rapids of being the city that works after the recent attempts by City officials to make it even harder for that boondoogle, the DeVos Convention Center, to make money.  You'd think that after the City had helped to stick the taxpayers with this white elephant, it would then at least make a few sensible decisions to help the thing turn a buck and lighten the burden upon the taxpayers.

Yes, I know, wishful thinking.  Awhile back, a dogged reporter from the Grand Rapids Press discovered that the convention center's illuminated show advertising on the building's riverfront exterior did not conform to a zoning ordinance limiting the size of advertising signs.  (Exactly the sort of investigative journalism we buy the Press for.)  So, it didn't take Linda Thompson of the City's zoning department to seize upon this violation and demand that the ailing convention center shut down one of its prime advertising tools.

And then last week the Grand Rapids Planning Commission denied Rich DeVos's new hotel the right to connect to the City's skywalk system to facilitate pedestrian traffic from the hotel to the convention center.  Apparently it eluded the planning commissioners that the entire rationale of the new hotel is the convention center and to that end the City (through the Downtown Development Agency) is considering the commitment of five million taxpayer dollars to the hotel project.   The commissioners objected because the skywalker connector didn't fit in with their sniffy notion of how people should walk about downtown.

More than likely the Grand Rapids City Commission will overrule these absurd decisions against the interests of the taxpayers.  Also likely no one making any of these decisions for or against has grasped that they have an obligation to make the taxpayer dollars they take for boondoogles like the convention center actually work.  All of this nonsense is the best reason why we should put an end to these "public-private" partnerships.